Two rifle shots spat sand and dirt in front of Noon, and then a shot came from the train.
The engine and express car had stopped. He saw that Finn Cagle was getting up, and shot into him again. Somebody shot from the car behind him, and he saw Peg Cullane drop her rifle.
Ruble Noon ran forward. Suddenly he heard the drivers spin as the power was thrown to the engine and he jumped for the rear of the express car.
He grabbed the door and ripped it open. The express messenger lay sprawled on the floor, his scalp laid open from a blow. The gold was still there in its neat sacks. He ran the length of the car, loading three chambers as he ran, and scrambled up on the tender.
Bayles, the one who ran with Cagle, turned sharply as the coal rattled and threw up his gun for a shot. The engineer lunged into him, and Bayles fell from the train, hitting the edge of the roadbed and rolling over into the grass and pine needles alongside the track.
He sprang to his feet, staggered, and the stagger made Noon miss his first shot. He swung to the ground and they faced each other.
Bayles was badly shaken, and the side of his face was bleeding from hitting the ground, but he still gripped his gun.
“Ruble Noon, is it?” he said. “I’ve heard of you. Now it’s you an’ me.”
“You can drop it and ride out,” Noon said, “and it can end here.”
“You joke. You think I will end it so? I am not afraid of you, Ruble Noon. German Bayles has killed his men, too.”
“We’d both be better off at some other occupation,” Ruble Noon replied calmly. “Enough men have died.”
“Sooner or later we all die. I think it is your time now, Ruble Noon. I think tomorrow in the saloons they will be telling how German Bayles killed you … face to face beside the railroad tracks.”
“Cagle’s had it,” Noon said. “He’s dead, or close to it.”
“And now – ” Bayles’s gun was in his hand, and so was Ruble Noon’s. Both men fired at the same instant. Noon felt the bullet strike him, felt his leg buckle under him, and he went down.
He was still shooting, but Bayles was walking in, smiling, confident. “Tomorrow in the saloons they will be talking,” he said, “talking of how …” He fired again as he spoke, and Ruble Noon’s body jerked with the shock of the bullet. “… of how German Bayles killed Ruble Noon … the great Ruble Noon.” The words came out slowly.
Ruble Noon was down, his brain a dizzy buying, his body numb. He tried to rise as German Bayles came toward him, but his leg refused to function.
Bayles was lifting his pistol for a final shot. The sun was hot on his face, a white cloud was drifting behind Bayles’s head; Noon could hear the crunch of gravel and the whisper of the coarse weeds as Bayles came on.
He noticed with surprise that there was blood on Bayles’s shirt … he did not remember hitting him … and the German’s face was beginning to streak with blood from a scalp wound. He was coming in close, still smiling. He stopped and spread his legs, seeming to waver just a little.
Ruble Noon saw the duty blue of Bayles’s shirt, saw the gun coming level, and then he fired twice, and heard the gun click on an empty chamber.
He flicked open the loading gate with his thumb, but he was lying on his elbow and he could not bring the other hand into play, so he tried to sit up, and failed. Bayles fell heavily beside him.
Ruble Noon rolled over on the hot gravel, smelling the dusty smell of the weeds, and he worked the ejector rod and thrust, out a shell, loading the cartridge in its place.
He spun the cylinder and looked over at Bayles. The German was staring at him, smiling. “Tomorrow in the saloons … they will be saying …” His voice trailed off, but he still looked at Ruble Noon.
“You are a good man, Ruble Noon,” he was saying, “… a good man… with a gun….”
He was still smiling – and he was dead.
Ruble Noon tried to get up. He heard running feet, and then hands caught him and he felt himself eased back to the ground.
“He’s hit hard,” someone said, a cool, woman’s voice, “I used to help my father – he was an Army surgeon. I think he knew more about bullet wounds than any man alive.”
Wind brushed his face. His eyes opened and he looked at a curtain, a white, lacy curtain at a window that looked out on green grass. Everything was peaceful and still.
He lifted his hand to his face. Just then someone came in the door. It was Fan.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“In Alamosa. You’ve had a hard time of it, Jonas.”
“How long have I been here?”
‘Two weeks. Mrs. McClain stayed on to help you through the worst of it. She said the doctor was incompetent. She left just last night.”
“I’d like to thank her.”
“You did, a number of tunes.”
He was silent for a while, and then he said, “Who shot Peg Cullane? You?”
“Rimes. He shot at her gun, and he was not far-off. He was using a rifle, you know. She lost two fingers.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. She was asking for trouble.”
The curtain blew a little in the wind. The air was cool and pleasant. He felt tired, but at the same time he felt good.
“I want to go back,” he said.
“Back east?”
“Back to the Rafter D. That’s a good outfit-and run the right way …”
He closed his eyes, and in his mind he could see the late snow on the ridge near the high cabin, and the way the grass bent before the wind in the meadows back of the ranch house.
“All right,” she said.